A Quick Piece of 'Lore'

After Seeing the Alpha 16 Orcs, I thought I might write this, partly to express my ideas for what orcs should be ‘like’ and also in part to simply create a short story. Also, I think Orcs should be playable; so, yeah.

16th Journal Entry of The Third Red Year of Ogathan the Scholar

“Today, rather than account the events of the day, I would like to express my ideas in regards to our distant relatives, the hearthlings. Despite their disturbing tastes and rather queer skin color, I think I can properly analyze just how they compare to us. Intelligence-wise, they are almost equal, except for one flaw I wish to discuss later. I once met a Hearthling scholar whom was just as thoughtful and wise as I. Although it shames me so, I’ve seen many Orc bands driven away by Hearthlings, but Vice Versa has happened often as well, fortunately. Physically, it is quite obvious Orcs are superior in regards to anatomy, but this makes it slightly more difficult for us to feed our kin or reproduce. That is really all I’d wish to go over in the limited space this journal provides me with, but, before I finish, I will discuss the flaw of the Hearthlings. They seem incredibly discriminatory. While we make judgments based on the caste that which show skill, an imperfect but rather functional and proper system, it appears our adversaries discriminate purely based on that which is different or foreign. What is common or ahem natural is deemed the superior; any difference is frowned upon. It is thanks to our bulkier physique alone, I believe, that we are mistaken for brutes of the dullest and stupidest order. Nowhere is this separation more clear than in how they treat magic, both divine and from other sources. While they deem necromancy evil, this dark, and that good, we believe that comparing the schools of divinity and darkness are simply like comparing apples to oranges. They are fundamentally distant, and yet neither is dubbed ‘evil’. It is thanks to this we have made discoveries new to our opposition in the area of magic and it is thanks to this we have magic users of all sorts capable of being used for any and all occasions. As much as I would like to discuss how their political system falls into this flaw as well, and how ours compares, I’m afraid I must wrap this up so as to keep this entry rather short.”

2 Likes

As mentioned in other posts I am trying to catch up on the few fan fictions that I missed giving critique on.

So here goes. (Sorry if this is a little brief, it is late and I am tired.)

This is all fine, but maybe try and tie in the months that the game uses. Just to tie this story a little more into the lore. Of course this may be an attempt to add depth to the orcs lore. If that is so you can keep it as it is. Although I have been picking up hints that the months are universal.

I have read through the entire thing and my first impression is that it is an awesome short story, but it doesn’t have the stonehearth feel. This is fine, since indeed part of the beauty of short stories is that we can see the same things through different angles and perspectives.

As far as grammar goes it seems to be pretty solid. I think you should consider breaking it into two or three paragraphs in order to make it more manageable for the readers. Although you have some random capitalization mistakes (for example Vice Versa shouldn’t be capitalized, and really orcs and hearthlings shouldn’t be capitalized either. Think about it do we capitalize humans, another race or species names?)

I think what this short story does very well is make the reader question their assumptions. There are some interesting moral problems posed above. As “lore master” I feel an obligation to say there is little evidence in the lore to support a lot of your ideas (like necromancy being evil, as a matter of fact there doesn’t seem to be a good or bad kind of magic. The very fact that goblins are a sophisticated race is technically inaccurate but like I said above that is your prerogative)

That is all for now, I hope this helps you in your future writing endeavors.

-Turtlesquish